It

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SPOILER-FREE REVIEW

     Based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, It tells the story of the Loser’s Club, a group of outcast youngsters in Derry, Maine, who encounter a sinister, supernatural, shape-shifting being in the form of a clown. The being, who emerges every 27 year to feed on children in the town, uses their worst fears to ensnare them. After Bill’s brother, Georgie, falls prey to the monster, he and his friends must rally together to confront both the evil clown, Pennywise, and the demons that haunt their everyday lives.

     For this review I plan to do most of the main discussion of the movie with spoilers in hand, but I can say this much without messing anything up: It succeeds on almost every level. Somehow equal parts horrifying and endearing, it’s a roller-coaster ride of pure emotion from start to finish.  

     Also, fair warning: Despite my high praise, It won’t be for everyone. There’s a good amount of gore and some dirty humor, and (it should go without saying) it’s also pretty scary. Kids and the faint of heart beware.

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CAUTION: HERE THERE BE SPOILERS

     It’s easy to be critical of reboots and revamps in Hollywood’s current climate, but It establishes itself as a welcome remake from the get-go. The movie throws the gauntlet down as soon as adorable little Georgie has his arm brutally ripped off by Pennywise in the storm drain. This killer clown, the movie seems to say, is not Tim Curry. This is not your grandmother’s It. There will be no messing around.

     And the movie delivers on the promise of that early scene. It is easily one of the scariest movies in recent memory. There’s nothing too original about its approach—like the popular Conjuring franchise, it does rely mainly on jump-scares. But while it can’t match the overarching sense of unease produced by a movie like The Babadook, It is exceptionally skilled at milking each jump for every ounce of fright.

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     Andy Muschietti (2013’s Mama) directs, and he proves adept at constructing memorable, spooky sequences. Take the (already infamous) projector scene, in which a giant Pennywise confronts the Loser’s Club by leaping through their projector. It’s wonderfully disquieting as the kids find that the projector has been commandeered by their evil adversary, and the jump scare that punctuates the moment—Pennywise’s sudden appearance in 3D—is legitimately shocking. But the director impresses even in smaller vignettes, as when Pennywise waves to one kid while gleefully chewing on a child’s hand. Muschietti composes even flashing, blink-and-you-miss-it beats with remarkable talent.

     Any monster movie lives or dies on the strength of the monster in question, and here the monster is Bill Skarsgard. Bill performs notably well, taking the character in a different direction than Tim Curry in the 1990’s mini-series. But in truth, there are relatively few scenes that really highlight his performance; otherwise, much of the monster’s scariness comes by way of CGI effects: Pennywise dancing, Pennywise untwisting from inside a freezer, Pennywise unhinging his jaw, etc. That this is true of the character betrays one of the movie’s flaws, which is a tendency to prioritize frightening images over an attempt to really appreciate of Pennywise’s underlying malevolency. Pennywise is scary to look at, but he stays at a distance.

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     Perhaps that tendency explains why the movie works far better as a coming-of-age story than a horror film, horrific though it may be. Sure, the movie is named after the monster, but it’s the kids who take center stage. I would be remiss without mentioning the Loser’s Club cast, which has rightfully received quite a bit of praise. The Loser’s Club includes Bill (Jaeden Lieberher), Beverly (Sophia Lillis), Richie (Finn Wolfhard), Stan (Wyatt Oleff), Mike (Chosen Jacobs), Eddie (Jack Dylan Grazer), and Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor). Note to self: these are some names that will be fun to watch.

     The success of the film as a whole rides in large part on their performances. The kids are tremendous actors, for one thing, but their chemistry as a group is undeniable. By the movie’s end, the audience really cares about these characters—cares, dare I say it, far more than they do about the growing threat of Pennywise.  It takes a certain charm to make an audience cheer in the theater, and in my showing it happened more than once. Audience cheering is not, of course, the ultimate barometer of character development, but I think it indicates the compelling dynamic between these kids.

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     The movie has the most fun when it’s with them as a group, comparing favorably to E.T, Stand By Me, Super 8, Stranger Things, and the like. Take the rock fight scene, which sees the Loser’s Club face off against bullies by throwing rocks at them from across a stream. It’s a humble moment compared to Pennywise’s larger machinations, but it’s among the movie’s strongest sequences. The same sense of childish fun comes through in a number of other sequences: a running New Kids on the Block gag, a scene at the local swimming hole, and the movie’s final scene after Pennywise’s defeat—to name a few. It’s another credit to Muschietti that he can manage these tonal shifts without jarring the audience.

     And there’s real meaning behind the kid’s surface level antics. The movie invests serious screen time in investigating their private, personal struggles, each of which come to the surface as the group battles Pennywise and none of which are at all childish. The kids learn to stand up to their fears (which are cleverly cloaked in the color red throughout the film) and to rely on each other. It’s their united strength that enables them to defeat “it.”

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     A theme like that might come across as trite or silly (or as a shallow metaphor), but It circumvents that pitfall by keeping the danger close. Triumphant though the Loser’s Club may be, Georgie lost an arm and his life. Henry Bowers, the local bully, allows his fears to turn him into a veritable monster in his own right. And as the movie’s final frames remind us, this is only the first chapter: Pennywise lives on to strike again 27 years from the film’s conclusion.

     Here’s hoping that the sequel, which will recast the characters as adults, can manage the same kind of emotional resonance a few years from now. 

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